Thursday, February 18, 2010

In Which We Still Have Too Much Stuff

We've only been in this apartment for a year.

Where did all of this stuff come from?

Seriously, I keep opening up cabinets to pack them, and there is stuff everywhere. Stuff I have absolutely no recollection of acquiring. This shouldn't come as a surprise, I guess; we had the same problem the last time we moved and so why I thought we somehow had less stuff now than we did back then is a bit of a mystery.

Other than books, of course. I know we have more books. Current count is probably around 1300 or so, and that's probably a low estimate. If the army was moving us our entire weight allowance would probably be books, and I would gladly forgo valuable pieces of heavy furniture to keep my collection together because that's how screwed up my priorities are. Luckily we are moving ourselves so we have no such weight restrictions other than what the floors of our house will support, but no doubt Jeremy and I will have the same discussion we did last time over whether or not we are allowed to take any books to the bookstore to sell (we're not allowed to, just in case you were wondering).

The only books I'm wavering on are the pregnancy books. Because justifying holding on to them by claiming that a pregnant friend might want to borrow them is sort of weak, and it's not like I'm going to need them again given the fact that we are adopting the rest of our kids. Nor are they the types of books that I will can see myself sitting in an armchair in our new library leafing through, perhaps chuckling over especially funny bits (nausea, constipation and placentas! good times!). So they may end up at the local used bookstore.

All other books are treasured companions and will be held onto until they fall apart and I have to hold a small but elegant service for them and bury them in the backyard. I will erect tiny bookend monuments in their honor.

But back to the stuff. I'm finding things that I swear I threw out the last time we moved. I clearly remember putting these things in the pile to be donated or thrown away, and yet here they are, sitting smugly on the backs of shelves where I shoved them last May and then never looked at them again. I suspect that some of these persistent items simply snuck off the correct piles and into boxes during the great rush at the last minute. This was the time when I was no longer packing in a methodical organized fashion, carefully wrapping each item and placing it in an appropriately labeled box, but was instead frantically throwing whatever I laid my hands on into a container and hoping that when I taped it shut I would not have accidently included the cats, or possibly my husband, in the contents packed inside. Or if I had that they would at least have enough air to make it to the new apartment.

Anyway I'm hoping that this time I'll be able to actually succeed in getting rid of some of this stuff. But given my past track record I wouldn't count on it.

I do not envy the task ahead of you, but I do feel a bit of your pain. When we boxed up our entire kitchen only a few weeks ago, I did a "thorough" purge, which resulted in two boxes for charity. So, how did I end up with four MORE boxes for charity as I move back in? I refuse to move ALL of our OLD kitchen stuff into our NEW kitchen. Good luck to you on your packing!

About The Author

I'm Connor's Mom. That pretty much explains everything. I mean, raising the epicenter of cuteness in the universe is tough, but it has its moments, all right.
I should probably mention that Connor has a submicroscopic, subtelomeric unbalanced translocation 46xy der t(1)(1;15)(q42;q26.2)-- an extremely rare chromosomal disorder. He keeps me on my toes!